Connective Resource Mobilization: A Relational Approach to Movement Continuity in Transnational Activism

Social movement studies have long centered social movement organizations (SMOs) as the primary vehicles of mobilization. Yet contemporary movements are increasingly decentralized and digitally mediated, challenging SMO-centric frameworks such as resource mobilization theory (RMT). As contention becomes more individualized and non-conventional, organization- and event-centered approaches struggle to explain how movements persist, evolve, or dissolve under shifting conditions. Drawing on RMT and economic sociology, this article advances a relational resource mobilization framework through four propositions: resource mobilization (1) is historically contingent; (2) translates into tactics differently across organizational configurations; (3) is relational; and (4) provides an analytic for examining movement continuity across time and space. Within this framework, I introduce the model of connective resource mobilization to theorize how digitally mediated movements generate strategic capacity through personalized earmarking practices across borders and phases of contention. Based on 179 interviews and observation at 187 events in Hong Kong and Canada, I trace how the Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Movement evolved from its 2019 protest peak through its subsequent downturn across domestic and diasporic contexts. The analysis demonstrates how a relational approach to resource mobilization can illuminate divergent trajectories of movement continuity across historical, geographic, political, and socio-technological contexts.